Shopping Engine Experiences

Anyone care to share general results on the Shopping Engines?

[skibum]

Does anyone here use them?

What categories?

Have you found any of them to be better than others?

Does CPC make a difference or do you find people tend to dig down and really search for specific things?

A little foray into the clothing categories is so far producing horrible results and just wondering if anyone else has had better experiences in that or other categories.

[skibum]

anybody use shopping engines? :)

[Mohamed_E]

I rarely use them, but did about a week ago.

I wanted a consumer product, made by several manufacturers in a bewildering variety of models (different levels of functionality).

I first checked the web site of the leading manufacturer (found it using Google) and spent an hour comparing models.

Once I had decided which model had the features I wanted at a price I could afford I did a Froogle search for BrandName ProductModelNumber. I saw prices, and soon found out that all outlets were selling it for either $89.99 or $99.99. Looked at the $89.99 snippets until I found one which advertised free shipping plus free gift.

I clicked on the vendor, found that they did indeed ship free and that one (out of a half dozen) gifts would actually be useful, and ordered it. I ordered it on Sunday, and received it on Wednesday. Obviously very pleased :)

The Froogle SERP page gave me all the information I needed, in this special case, to choose a vendor.

[Robert Charlton]

I don't do much shopping, but I am careful when I have to buy something... and I find it's very difficult to get decent information. Most manufacturers' sites are useless, as are most large dealers. Brick and mortar chain stores generally aren't very helpful either, unless you come across that rare experienced salesperson....

When my HP5L printer gave out recently, I was tearing my hair trying to get details about available replacements, and I chanced to stumble upon DealTime.com. I was frankly surprised at how good the site was. In HP printers, anyway, there were clear price comparisons, detailed product specs (much better than HP's), and excellent and informative reviews. I haven't tried them for anything else, but they're bookmarked.

[Robert Charlton]

PS to the above... It occurs DealTime may not be a "shopping engine" in the sense that Froogle or some of the all PPC engines are. Whether or not it is, I think that's where Froogle, eg, is likely to run into competition.